London’s Hunger Is An Avoidable Crisis
There is no reason anyone in London, one of the world’s wealthiest cities, should be going hungry. It’s time to build a system that acknowledges that fact – and ends food insecurity for good.
4299 Articles by:
Rae Hart
Rae Deer is an economist and freelance writer.
93. Grassroots Organising 101 w/ Sasha Josette and Olly Armstrong
This week, Grace talks to Natasha Josette and Olly Armstrong about their community organising project, Breathe. They discuss challenges and opportunities associated with community organising, how it can be linked up with other elements of political strategy like the labour movement and electoral politics, and how you can begin this sort of grassroots work in your own area.
Housing’s Double Crisis
Renting was a nightmare before the cost of living disaster. Now bidding wars and massive rent hikes are worsening a housing system already in crisis – and many simply can’t afford the hit.
Bus Workers Are Driving the Fight for Fair Pay
After bus workers kept the country moving during Covid, Arriva is now trying to slap hundreds of them in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire with a real-terms pay cut. The workers are having none of it.
Polyflor’s Suspensions Are an Attack on Workers
Polyflor workers in Manchester were set to strike last week for a fair pay offer from a company that posted record profits last year. Then management suspended all their shifts – and they don’t yet know when they’re going back.
The Country Can’t Take Truss’s Thatcher Tribute Act
Liz Truss is styling herself a 21st-century Thatcher. The problem with that is that inequality is already up, the labour movement has already been weakened, and there’s nothing left to privatise.
Virtual Reality’s Political Potential
VR documentary films can work to politicise perception, offering portals into different ways of seeing society.
Universal Credit Has Been a Disaster. It Has to Be Replaced.
As the cost of living crisis bites, the failings of Universal Credit – low rates and complicated fluctuating payments among them – are redoubling the misery for millions. It’s time to replace it with a benefits system that works.
Ghost in the Machine
Chris Blackwell’s memoir of his life between Jamaica and Britain is attuned to the uses of a posh accent in the post-colonial music industry.
Big Oil’s Disinformation War
Big Oil has waged a decades-long disinformation war to prevent the transition to renewable energy, resulting in obscene profits for fossil fuel companies, soaring bills for consumers and a climate crisis that threatens the planet.
Only Disconnect
Darren McGarvey’s second book uses the author’s authenticity to drive home the disconnection between classes in Britain; but in doing so, it reflects a cosy national consensus in Scotland.
How Hungary Abandoned Roma Refugees
In Hungary, attacks on support for refugees and prejudices aggravated by Orbán have left Roma people who crossed the border from Ukraine facing a future of deepening exclusion and insecurity.
Neoliberalism Was Born in Chile. A New Constitution Could Bury It.
Today Chile is voting on a new constitution. By replacing Pinochet’s document with one that guarantees social, economic and environmental rights, Chileans have a chance to bury the legacy of neoliberalism once and for all.
Tory Levelling Up Doesn’t Exist
The content of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill proves that the only levelling up the ruling party is interested in is levelling up the bank accounts of the already rich.
Bad Company
Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller talk to Juliet Jacques about their podcast and book ‘Bad Gays’, and about the ways in which LGBT history and current politics intersect.
These Strikes Don’t End with the Summer
Our current crisis was forty years in the making, and still none of the main parties have any real answers to spiralling inflation, unaffordable bills, or poverty wages. Hot strike summer might be over, but workers’ anger is not.
Smash the Computers!
A new film charts the brief rise and disappearance of the French direct action group CLODO, a collective of IT workers who believed that computerisation was being used as a tool of capital.
92. All Work, No Play w/ Mareile Pfannebecker and J. A. Smith
This week, Grace is joined by Mareile Pfannebecker and James A. Smith to discuss their book Work Want Work: Labour and Desire at the End of Capitalism. They discuss why we are working so hard, what kind of work is valued, and what a post-work future might look like.
Pay Up OCS
Outsourced hospital workers should be paid the same as their in-house NHS colleagues. Workers employed by OCS in Lancashire and South Cumbria Trust know that – and they’ve been out on strike to make it a reality.
Pakistan’s Floods Show the Climate Crisis Is Also a Debt Crisis
Pakistan causes less than 1% of global carbon emissions, but a third of it is now underwater – and rebuilding is going to be hamstrung by its $12.5 billion in debt repayments due this year alone. That debt should be cancelled.